Ted Fishman

Biography

Ted C. Fishman is a veteran journalist, essayist and former member and trader of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.

His latest book, Shock of Gray, The Aging of the World`s Population and How it Pits Young Against Old, Child Against Parent, Worker Against Boss, Company Against Rival, and Nation Against Nation (Scribner Books, October 2010) looks at how the aging of the world is propelling globalization, redefining nearly every important relationship we have and changing life for everyone young and old.

Shock of Gray is rich in stories, drawn from North America, Europe and East and Southeast Asia. It also offers a clear-eyed view and analysis on where the older world is heading and what it means for all of us.

In Fishman`s previous book, the international bestseller, China, Inc.: How the Rise of the Next Superpower Challenges America and the World, he describes the effects of China`s recent emergence as a world power on the lives and businesses of people across the globe.

Ted is an accomplished public speaker who has addressed international audiences of all sizes.

His talks reflect the intelligence readers find in his writing and have most recently focused on the emergence of China and its impact on the lives of Americans as consumers, workers, managers, and citizens.

Fishman`s presentations combine engaging storytelling with a wide ranging knowledge about the world economy, putting his audiences` top concerns into context and exploring how they relate to big, global economic trends. His style is lively and stimulating, and question and answer periods are inevitably engaging.

A graduate of Princeton, he lives in Chicago.

Publications

Shock of Gray

The world`s population is rapidly aging -- by the year 2030, one billion people will be sixty-five or older.

As the ratio of the old to the young grows ever larger, global aging has gone critical: For the first time in history, the number of people over age fifty will be greater than those under age seventeen. Few of us under stand the resulting massive effects on economies, jobs, and families. Everyone is touched by this issue -- parents and children, rich and poor, retirees and workers -- and now veteran journalist Ted C. Fishman masterfully and movingly explains how our world is being altered in ways no one ever expected.

With vivid and witty reporting from American cities and around the world, and through compelling interviews with families, employers, workers, economists, gerontologists, government officials, health-care professionals, corporate executives, and small business owners, Fishman reveals the astonishing and interconnected effects of global aging, and why nations, cultures, and crucial human relationships are changing in this timely, brilliant, and important read.